GWU’s Roots in the Emerging Community Garden Movement By Matt Renfer A close eye on the landscape in Boiling Springs, N.C. reveals a number of freshly sprouted community gardens. Perhaps less apparent, but equally important, is that each project’s origins are inherently rooted in Gardner-Webb University. No less than four individual gardens and one farmer’s market, all closely tied to the University, have come to fruition in the span of two years—the culmination of invigorated community involvement through volunteered growth. The first seeds of the movement can be traced to 2009, when the Foothills Farmer’s Market came to Boiling Springs. Current Gardner-Webb Coordinator of Community Engagement, Stephanie Richey (’10), and current senior Brittany Mote were instrumental in launching the market as a satellite campus at the Ruby Hunt YMCA.
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Then, during the spring 2010 semester, one of the more notable gardens fulfilled GWU’s commitment to community service by becoming a hub for volunteers looking to feed the hungry with harvested potatoes. The story of the Cleveland County Potato Project (see “Giving From the Ground Up,” Winter/Spring 2010 Issue) has caused a widespread ripple effect, eventually gaining the attention of the White House and prompting the University’s participation in the President’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge (“Accepting the Challenge,” page 12). But arguably the most tangible proof of University support for the local foods movement came during the Spring 2011 semester, when Richey and Mote were granted permission to start the University’s official community garden. Fueled entirely by volunteers, the support of GWU faculty, and funded by the SGA, the garden’s produce will be donated to feed the Children’s Homes of Cleveland County. “Because of the classes I took and the education I received,” said Richey, “the local foods movement is something I learned a lot about—something I’m personally passionate about as a result of being a graduate of Gardner-Webb.” The University’s official garden wasn’t the only one to sprout this year, as another came to bear fruit with the backing of the Ruby Hunt YMCA and the local Broad River Community Church. “Ultimately, the goal of our garden is to bring people together and provide for the community,” said Joseph Hamby, coordinator of the garden and ’09 GWU alumnus. “We want to facilitate a way that different people, different cultures can all come together.” With a number of youth groups involved, the goal is to donate all grown produce to fight local hunger. In the summer of 2011, yet another community garden was launched by a member of the Gardner-Webb community. Kelly Brame, coordinator of leadership and volunteerism, started a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) garden to sell weekly shares of fresh produce. While each of the gardens and farmer’s market share a common theme of service to the community, the bloom in recent months can be attributed to a number of varying factors. “I think food has been an issue—a growing issue in the last decade, and probably the last couple of decades,” said Brame. “But it’s intensified with each year, especially with media exposure like Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,”—the 2010-premiered television show whose aim is to combat obesity by offering healthier school meals. “We want children to be healthier,” said Mote, a health and wellness major, referring to vegetable donations to the Cleveland County Children’s homes. “The GWU community garden could be their complete food source as far as vegetables go. We’re just trying to get them as much as we can.” Hunger is another factor—currently compounded with rising food prices, high unemployment, and a weakened U.S. dollar. “Once you start taking away the hunger aspect of poverty,” said Hamby, “you can start focusing on other issues like literacy.” Still, the prevailing motivators for launching the gardens may be less a question of “why?” and more a question of “why not?” “It’s a lot about doing what you can for where you are,” Hamby said, elaborating on his project’s mission. “We realized we have all these incredible resources around us taken for granted for so long that we can be using to combat a lot of the issues that we have.” The new wave of community gardens in Boiling Springs have arrived, but will they dig in and take root—providing practical needs for Boiling Springs and the surrounding community? Brame, for one, hopes his CSA garden does. “I think it’s a good thing. Can we keep it going? That’s a good question…whether we can make the growing of it sustainable.” And if the Gardner-Webb community garden is to thrive, Mote insists it will be because of the effort of not only “Gardner-Webb students and faculty but also people from the community.” “It’s so much more than planting a seed,” says Richey. “We have learned so much through this process, so I think it’s just going to continue to grow.”
Fall 2011 • Gardner-Webb – The Magazine
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